This poem is inspired by Samuel Aranda's 2011 World Press Photo of the Year, depicting Fatima al-Qaws cradling her son Zayed after finding him in a makeshift hospital following a massive street demonstration in Sana, Yemen, against the repressive regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. At least 12 people died the day that Zayed, overcome by tear gas, fell, sustaining a head injury that left him in a coma for several days. In her mid-thirties, Zayed's mother herself is an activist. Zayed, committed to martyrdom, has been wounded two times since the photograph was taken. See the Lens blog article "In Yemen, an Emotional Reunion", about the photograph and Aranda's visit with the al-Qaws family, and this brief in The Guardian, "Samuel Aranda's Best Photograph: A Woman Protects Her Son".

Hamsa refers to the palm-shaped amulet or open right-hand recognized as protection against the evil eye. It is also known as the hand of Fatima, Fatima being the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad; Levantine Christians call it the hand of Mary, mother of Jesus. It was only after I wrote the poem yesterday that I realized how the symbol and the real-life mother were linked. Nard, believed to have first been used in the 12th Century, is an aromatic ointment deemed to have restorative powers.